Watch The Guilty For Free

Sorry, this movie sucks

Simply A Masterpiece

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

In deciding to do this British TV miniseries as a movie, there was an opportunity to take maybe just one of the coincidences that ruin this story out of the script, but instead, it's practically verbatim.Bill Pullman plays Callum Crane, an excellent attorney who is totally self-involved, arrogant, and amoral. He lives with his wife and her children, whom he doesn't like.Crane becomes interested in a young secretary, the petite, leggy Sophie (Gabrielle Anwar). One night, they are both at the office late, have drinks together and go to her apartment. He wants to have sex with her, but Sophie realizes it's a mistake. After all, he's her boss and he's married and drunk. Crane doesn't take no for an answer and rapes her.Sophie is too traumatized to report it or do anything about it, but Crane is bothered by her presence and has her fired. Then he is made a Judge. Sophie sees an opportunity to threaten him with going public if he doesn't resign.A subplot concerns a young man who, learning he is adopted, goes searching for his father.The British version, due to the young thugs, is grittier, and let's face an important fact - Bill Pullman is no Michael Kitchen and doesn't come close to realizing this character. He comes off as a bland guy, although an egotistical attorney, who decides to take a desperate action, but we don't see his growing desperation, and we don't see him as someone capable of making the decision he makes or any of the follow-up.What I found mildly interesting is that Joanna Whalley plays Pullman's wife, and like the character of Sophie, she too is petite and brunette, so you can see the interest -- he's at this point not very involved with his wife.I've always thought Gabrielle Anwar was a very good actress, and she is excellent here, sexy and more street smart than in the British version where the character was much more naive and fragile.The ending is different, making it a tiny bit more palatable. The ending of the original was disappointing.If you're going to see a version of "The Guilty," see the British 1992 version.

I always enjoy Bill Pullman's work. He comes at us in a crab-like, sideways manner. He seems to speak out of the corner of his mouth and look at an object out of the corners of his eyes. His voice, soft and slightly crackling, is that of everyman, maybe somebody to play bridge with.And Gabrielle Anwar is fine too. She has all the proper features of a formula Hollywood actress -- expressive eyes, strong but delicate nose, pulpy symmetrical lips, an exemplary figure -- but they don't add up to stunning beauty. The arrangement of her features results in a kind of compelling ugliness. Her acting is okay, a little on the weak side.That just about gets the good stuff out of the way. The movie stinks. Pullman, in a moment of wanton drunkenness, more or less rapes Anwar. And when Pullman is appointed to a federal judgeship, he has her fired with a generous separation package so that she won't be around to make trouble.But she does make trouble. She shows up wet and shivering in his office and threatens to spill the beans on him. Pullman then accidentally meets some young guy, rather a nice fellow, just out of jail and gives him an envelope containing money and the identity of the person Pullman wants murdered.The ex inmate thinks the deal over and disposes of the unopened envelope. It is retrieved by one of his Goth goon friends who needs the money to pay off a debt to some local hoods. There follows a good deal of cutting back and forth as the good guy tries to save Anwar from the desperate bad guy and his friends.No point going on with the plot. If you've seen any of the many thrillers along these lines you can pretty much figure it out without being drawn a picture, although one touch is at least slightly novel. After she repulses all attempts to warn her, Anwar actually IS battered to death. But it should come as no surprise that the good guy, trying frantically to warn her, should be blamed for the murder.Okay. I won't go into the clichés except for one. The punk who steals the envelope. This was shot in wintry, soaking-wet British Columbia. The trees are bare. The temperature of every artifact is barely above freezing. Yet the killer drips with sweat. Outdoors or inside, it makes no difference. His face seems covered with canola oil. It's rubbed into his hair -- what there is of it. He wears the tonsure of a monk from the Dark Ages. His hair is cut in the shape of a bowl, with the razor line high enough to reveal the zig zag tattoo on his occiput. His features are those of a Middle Eastern sodomist and his face glows with evil. He wears filthy jeans and a black leather jacket with chain zippers. He lives in a garbage dump.Getting the picture? You know what might have added a touch of originality to the script? I mean, aside from improvements in wardrobe, make up, and casting? If Pullman did not, in fact, represent arrogant male patriarchy. If Anwar had simply made up the story of the rape. It would have introduced a note of edgy ambiguity. After all, who is to say whether or not it happened, since there's no longer any evidence.Some ten or fifteen years ago, a pretty young woman threatened Bill Cosby with exposure and degradation, claiming she was his illegitimate child. (She looked nothing like Bill Cosby although at least one courtroom artist simply copied Cosby's face onto her figure.) Cosby's tapped phone revealed a celebrity predator perfectly at ease with extortion, negotiating matter-of-factly to keep the price of her silence over a million dollars. A plot something like that would have saturated the movie with a kind of noirish shadowiness.Instead, we simply have good and evil. The powerful white guy (and his wife) are counterfeit and duplicitous. Anwar and her would-be savior are innocent and good. These Manichean distinctions are beginning to irritate me, on and off the screen. You want to see uncomplicated good and bad? Watch a Roadrunner cartoon.

Yes, it was a little bit unbelievable that the Judge's son would be the one he hired to kill the person he raped so that she won't blackmail him.It was awesome though and kept me interested the entire movie.It's a little gem - not a diamond by any means, but a gem - something like a copycat diamond. With enough sparkle to amuse and delight and please, but not something that is treasured for years to come.I enjoyed the story, the performances and the fact that my home was once again used in the film.I must have lived in the most awesome places on Earth, because they keep being used in movies.Anyways, it's a cool little crafty number that delighted me.

Reading all the above comments, both for and against I note that there was no remarks on the pivotal role of LEO, played by Jaimz Woolvett, this young man reminded me strongly of Gary Oldman, the intensity he brought to the instability and sudden rages of the character were first class, the emotional switch from bravado to weeping terror when confronted with a pistol to his head were frighteningly real.Bill Pullman, as usual gave value for money, his style of louche living and loose moral standards was excellent, young Devon Sawha seemed a little lost at first but with the more emotional scenes with his family and with the girl he rose to meet the challenge, he probably needs to move past the "pretty face" casting and look for more challenging roles. I rate 7/10